Profitability requires measurability
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it!”
This is a quote from Peter Drucker, one of the strategy gurus of our time. The statement is totally equally to training and to managing change.
Network-based training and mobilization projects give us an excellent opportunity to measure competence and change. And, to quote someone else’s words: keep it simple and stupid!
It is worth starting with simple criteria, such as the number of participants and those completing the course. In stages, you can then move on to measure changes in attitude and competence, and only lastly progress to indirect indices, such as efficiency and result or improvements in quality.
Even the first indices will give us plenty of reference data and depictions of progress, provided that the measurements are regular, consistent and continuous. It is important to discuss the issue of measurement at the level of the annual target planning and set objectives that are sufficiently tangible in nature. It is equally important to compare different contents and different processes and base on them any conclusions about the best development or mobilization models.
And, just to conclude with another quote, this time from the “Father” of commercial research into e-learning, John Bersin:
"E-learning is not a training tool. It is a business performance improvement tool. If you use it that way, your entire e-learning program will be cost-effective, powerful, and aligned with the business, and it will have the potential of driving competitive advantage. This is the promise, and today it is possible.”
If you can measure it, you can manage it!
Text: Iiro Pohjanoksa